Tomas G. Masaryk Quotes

In a democracy, power implies responsibility.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

A democracy delegates leadership. It cannot surrender to it.... The genuinely democratic community rightfully views the hero with suspicion and is notoriously ungrateful.

The world wants good government and a plenty of it, not liberty.

I think it's time that we said to people who are incapable of acknowledging that they've ever got anything wrong: 'I'm sorry, you've had your day.' Unelected, unaccountable elites, I'm afraid it's time to say, 'You're fired. We are going to take back control.'

It does not matter what party you are a member of in this great Nation of ours. Accountability and competence are characteristics that Americans value throughout our great land.

A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.

In Ethiopia, democracy is in its infancy and it must be nurtured along by its leaders.

Democracy may not prove in the long run to be as efficient as other forms of government, but it has one saving grace: it allows us to know and say that it isn't.

Democracy literally means the power of people. Democracy is not about politics, it is about the people.

Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

Freedom is when the people can speak, democracy is when the government listens.

All government is a trust. Every branch of government is a trust, and immemorially acknowledged to be so.

Each age must … contend anew with the question of power and accountability.

Elections alone will never be enough to ensure good governance.

The people who own the country ought to govern it.

Self government cannot work if the people do not know what their rulers are doing and why.

… a right-minded and true-hearted statesman who has had as much sovereign power placed in his hands as you have placed in mine should regard himself as the servant of the Senate; and often of the people as a whole; and sometimes of private citizens, too.

The most basic building block of any successful government is, first and foremost, a moral authority over the people it leads.

The essence of democracy is how to restrict government power; this is the most important reason why China so badly needs democracy. The overconcentration of government powers without checks and balances is the root cause of so many social problems.

This need of a symbol, something to look up to, to trust, to rely on, is a very deep need in human nature. On it in the past has been built every theory of government. Kings grew out of it; dictators grow out of it today; and the real test of Democracy is whether we can feel this way about our leaders and yet keep enough reliance in ourselves to preserve the individual responsibility that must exist in every citizen if democracies are to endure.

No democracy pretends to be a tyranny. Most tyrannies pretend they are democracies. Democracy remains the definition of political legitimacy.

It's absolutely right that we scrutinise the leaders who after all are going to be in a position of great power.

When all Americans believe that the people we elect deserve to be in power, that their conduct in office is worthy of respect, and that they can be held accountable for their decisions, our politics will finally be worthy of our great people.

The British are a people who are generally happy, under normal circumstances, to trust politicians to tell us the truth and to leave them to run the country as we get on with our lives. But we reserve the right, always, to make it clear that they are our servants, not our masters, and, when necessary, we can and will take charge.